Nuggets assistant coach Mike Dunlap met Tuesday morning with Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn about the Buffs’ head coaching job.
“I have interest in listening and seeing how it comes to a head,” Dunlap said Tuesday night. “I told Nuggets management that I wouldn’t draw it out and have 58 meetings.”
Bohn would not comment on the meeting, other than to say he has had preliminary discussions with various candidates to replace departing coach Ricardo Patton. Bohn described them as a “get to know me” sessions.
“We’ve had quite a bit of activity, but the formal interview process has not begun,” Bohn said. “We’re focusing in on some folks. The process continues, and we’re encouraged.”
Dunlap met with Bohn and his special assistant, Tom McGrath, for breakfast.
“It was really friendly,” said Dunlap, who is in his first season with the Nuggets. “It was a quick hit. Real positive. But there was nothing pointed.”
Asked if it would be hard to leave the Nuggets, Dunlap said: “It would be tough, because I’m enjoying it a lot, learning a lot, I like the staff, like the situation. It hasn’t been easy for others, but it has been easy for me. The staff has eased me into the culture. It’s been easy because I’ve enjoyed what’s been happening. I told that to management.”
Dunlap said Nuggets head coach George Karl told him “to listen and have an open mind” to what CU said.
As to where CU goes from here, Dunlap echoed Bohn.
“I think they will do it with a number of people,” Dunlap said of the preliminary interviews. “It’s a process. They are trying to feel it out and shape their vision along the way. They have a vision. But as they talk to each candidate, they are getting more focused on what the program needs.”
Bohn is analyzing candidates to replace Patton, who announced before the season started this would be his final year at CU.
A Fairbanks, Alaska, native, Dunlap compiled a 248-50 record (.832) in nine years at Metro State, winning NCAA Division II national championships in 2000 and 2002, before going across the street to join the Nuggets last summer. The Roadrunners also reached the D-II semifinals in 1999 and 2004.
